What Is to Be Done? quotes

I do not possess the slightest sign of an artistic talent. My skill in using good language is small, but that is not of the least consequence. Read! my dear public; not without profit shalt thou read.

Truth is a good thing; truth compensates for the faults of that author who serves her.

And therefore I will tell thee, that if I had not warned thee, thou wouldst probably have the idea my story was written artistically, that the author possessed a great poetic talent.

“My friend! my dear child! may God spare you from knowing what I am feeling now, when, for the first time in many years, pure lips touch mine.

Die, but don’t give a kiss without love!

”

and I did not know how I should feel when I felt love for you; and so now I do not know how I should feel to love a man;

I only know that I do not want to be anybody’s slave! I want to be free!

I do not want to be under obligations to anyone, so that anyone should dare to say to me, ‘You must do something for me.’ I want to do only what I have it in my heart to do, and let others do the same;

For what I do not feel the slightest need of, I am not going to sacrifice, I do not say myself, but even my slightest caprice.

I want to be independent and live in my own way; I am prepared for whatever is needful for myself; whatever is not needful I do not want.

What will be necessary for me I do not know; you say, ‘I am young and inexperienced, that I shall change as time goes on,’—well, so be it; when the time comes, I shall change;

I have been trying to ruin you. This is torment; I cannot touch the pure without polluting it. Avoid me, my child; I am a bad woman; don’t think about society! They are all bad there, worse than I am.

Where idleness is, there is abomination; where grandeur is, there is abomination.

Run, run!”

Storeshnikof’s mother, of course, would oppose his choice; his mother is a representative of the world, and Storeshnikof hitherto has stood in awe of his mother, and of course he has been burdened by his dependence on her.

For people who have no strength of character it is very charming to think, “I am not afraid. I have a strong character.”

Of course, there was also a desire to advance in his worldly career through his wife.

Therefore, with her permission, I will relate to you the story of her life, since, so far as I know, she is one of the first women whose life was established in this good way. First occurrences have a historical interest.

The first swallow is regarded with great interest by the natives of the North.

The occurrences by means of which Viérotchka’s life began to improve were somewhat in this order: It was necessary to get Viérotchka’s little brother ready for the gymnasium. Her father asked his colleagues if they knew of a cheap tutor.

you may dream of happy childish games, forfeits, tag, or maybe dances, also gay and unconcerned. It seems strange to some people, but you do not know that it is strange, and I know that it is not strange.

Agitation in love does not point to love; agitation in it is something that should not exist, for love in itself is joyous and unconcerned.

“How strange this is,” thinks Viérotchka; “here I myself, again and again have thought and felt all that he said about the poor and about women and how one should love.

“It can’t be helped, Marya Alekséyevna. We are taught at the medical school to play cards well.

A doctor must know how to take tricks.

”

“No, Viéra Pavlovna; this theory is cold, but it teaches a man to bring out the warmth.

A match is cold, the matchbox on which you scratch the match is also cold; but there is fire in them which gets a man warm food, and warms him also.

This theory is merciless; but if it is followed, people will not become the wretched objects of idle charity. The lancet must not bend; otherwise it will be necessary to pity the patient, who will suffer none the less because of your sympathy.

And so the conversation ended.

Ekh! Messrs. Kirsánof and Lopukhóf, you are learned men, but you cannot imagine in what respect this is peculiarly good.

Let us grant that what you have been talking about is good. Kirsánof did not think of asking whether the girl were pretty, and Lopukhóf did not think to say that she was.

Gentlemen, it used to be so, but not now; it is now true in certain instances, but not with those young men who are alone regarded as the present generation.

Gentlemen, this is a peculiar generation.

He even lost thirty-five kopeks. This was the first time, and it filled her with victorious glory, and when he went away he left her greatly pleased; not so much on account of the money as on account of the victory.

There are purely ideal pleasures even for hearts soiled with materialism, and this is proof positive, that a materialistic explanation of life is unsatisfactory.

I am always looking and thinking, why is everybody so polite to strangers? Why do all people try to appear better than they are in their own families? And in fact, before strangers they are better. Why is it?

Why do they treat their own people worse than they do strangers, though they love them more?

Do you know, my dear, that there is one favor that I want to ask of you—to treat me as you have always treated me. This has not hindered you from loving me;

Viéra Pavlovna’s life will not be undermined by being deprived of the means of shining in society and of dressing expensively; and her relations to Lopukhóf will not be demoralized by a “pernicious feeling of gratefulness.”

I am not one of those artists in whose every word is hidden some kind of a spring. I am only relating what people have done and thought.

If any kind of an action, conversation, monologue, is necessary for the characterizing of a person or a situation, I relate it, even though it may respond with no results in the further development of my story.

hm! da, hm!” At the first monologue he had a dim suggestion of an idea, but he was not sure what it was; at the second monologue he saw plainly in his mind what he imagined at the first.

“It does not do to offer a person freedom and then leave him in prison.”

After that he thought steadily for two hours—an hour and a half on his way from Semyonovsky bridge to Vuiborgsky, and half an hour on his sofa. The first quarter of an hour he thought without wrinkling his forehead;

“I never observed anything of the sort. However, let us ask him.—Have you ever loved me, Dmitri?”

“I never particularly despised you!”

“Well, if that is the case, Aleksandr Matvéitch, I shall not forbid your meeting, and I myself will love you!”

that instead of doing so, you are acting in a contrary way; but you possess it, and this cannot be said of all. Wretches are capable of doing anything.

You are only a bad woman, but you are not hopelessly a wretched woman.

You are higher than many, even if judged by the moral standard.

but does it follow from this that she felt no love for her daughter? It does not follow at all. When the matter was ended, when her daughter tore herself away from her power forever, what could she do?

Whatever falls from the wagon is lost.

For all that, she is her daughter; and now, when there was no chance whatsoever for Viéra Pavlovna to serve Marya Alekséyevna’s interests, the mother sincerely wished her daughter good.

“How did I ever have the strength to live in such miserable bonds? How could I ever breathe in that cellar? And I not only lived and breathed there, but even grew strong and well!

It is wonderful! it is incomprehensible! How could I grow up there into a love for goodness?

It is incomprehensible! It is beyond belief!” thought Viéra Pavlovna, as she returned home; and she felt herself rescued from suffocation.

Do not love, do not respect me? I am a vixen; why should you love me? I am bad; why should you respect me? But you understand, Viérka, that if I were not what I am, you would not be what you are.

You are good because I am bad. You are sweet-tempered because I am a vixen.

Understand that, Viérka, and be grateful.”

besides, I am lazy. You get so tired, being at the hospital and the medical school from nine o’clock till five, that you don’t feel it possible to go anywhere else, or make any change, except from your uniform into your smoking-jacket.

Friendship is a good thing; but don’t get angry, if I say that a cigar on a sofa, in a smoking-jacket, is better still!

”

I understand even more; Kirsánof fell in love with Viéra Pavlovna long ago, and that was the reason why he ceased to call on the Lopukhófs.”

Oh, what penetration you have, my sapient readers! As soon as you are told anything, then you say, “I thought so,” and you plume yourself on your shrewdness.

I bow before you, sapient reader!

And now it was all brought to light again; and, of course, when you feel such a love, how can you look upon anybody else with favor, except the man whom you love? You yourself know that this is impossible.

There is nothing else in existence except the one man.

Here I was sitting and weeping, ‘What can I do now, being as I have nothing to live on?’ And I really made up my mind to go and see him once more, and then go and drown myself.

“

Do I only love him because he led me out from the cellar⁠—not himself, but my salvation from the cellar?

”

‘Let us suppose that this person is satisfied with his situation.’ Now when that was said, he ought to have replied: ‘Aleksandr, your supposition is not true.’ But I held my peace because it was not to my advantage to say it.

It is pleasant for a man, as a theorist, to notice what tricks his egotism plays with him in practical life.

You are retreating from the battle because the battle is lost for you, but egotism turns your gestures so that you are playing the man who is doing noble actions.”

But the “visitor” did not prophecy in vain when she compelled Viéra Pavlovna to read her diary.

Eyes become too sharp, when such a “visitor” whispers in your ear.

But even these eyes could see nothing; but still the “visitor” whispered, “Is it impossible to find something here, even though there is nothing to be seen, as I myself perceive? but still we will try to see”;

“Again, silence! Who gave you the right to be master over me? I shall despise you!” She ran quickly to her own room and locked the door.

This was their first and their last quarrel.

Till late that night Viéra Pavlovna sat with her door locked; then she returned to her husband’s room.

this is true, my dear Viérotchka. And I am not less fond of you than you are of me. And the disposition towards a person—the wishing his happiness—this we both firmly believe in.

But there is no happiness without freedom.

You would not want to restrain me, nor I you. And if you began to use restraint on yourself on my account, you would grieve me; so don’t do it. Do whatever you think is for your best.

For anyone else to read it, except Rakhmétof, would be equivalent to eating sand or sawdust. But it was to his taste.

Such people as Rakhmétof are rare.

So far in my life I have met with only eight examples of this species (and that number includes two women). They have no interrelation, except in one feature.

“Yes, pity me; you are right.

I myself am not an abstract idea; I am a man who would like to love.

Nu, it is nothing though; it will pass,” he would add. And in reality he got over it. Only once, after I had roused his spirits by some of my ridiculous speeches, even in the late fall, he still uttered these words.

“For your humility, a reward.

Humility is always rewarded.

You must certainly have a bottle of wine. It will not be bad for you to drink some. Where shall I find it? on the sideboard or in the cupboard?”

Indeed, I could have told you this long ago, but I held my peace. So if I speak now, it is because it is necessary to speak.

I do not say anything before it is necessary.

You saw how I kept the note ten hours in my pocket, though it was pitiful to look at you; but it was necessary not to speak, and I did not speak.

“Again ‘terrible things’!

Terrible to me are the awful sufferings from trifles and unnecessary catastrophes.

”

No, my friends, my mean, bad, pitiful friends, it did not appear to you in the right way.

It is not they that stand so high, but you that stand so low.

Now you see that they are standing on the earth. If they appear to you flying in the clouds, it is because you are sitting in the bottom of a den; on the height upon which they stand all people can stand, and must.

Read them; they are books which fill the heart with joy. Observe life; for it is interesting to observe. Think; for it is delightful to think. That is all. No sacrifices are required; no deprivations are asked; they are not necessary.

Desire to be happy! that is all; only this desire is wanted.

And for this sake with delight watch over your development; there is happiness in it. Oh, what an enjoyment there is for a fully developed man!

I worked very energetically till we were told, “That’ll do; the danger is over”; and from that time I understood that if you have any fear of a great fire, you must run to it and work, and you will not fear at all.

Whoever works has no time to fear, or to feel disgust or squeamishness.

And so Viéra Pavlovna gave herself up to medicine; and she was one of the first women whom I knew to enter this new field of activity. After this she really began to feel herself a different person.

After this she really began to feel herself a different person. Her thought was, “In a few years I shall actually stand on my feet.” This is a great thought.

There can be no full happiness without full independence.

Poor women, how few among you have this happiness!

One thing calls for pity: at the present time, to every one man of the new dispensation there are a dozen or more antediluvians. This, however, is natural.

In an antediluvian world you expect an antediluvian population.

Where did people get the idea that love grows weak, when there is nothing to hinder people from belonging wholly to each other? These people did not know true love. They felt only an erotic selfishness, or an erotic fancy.

Real love begins only when people begin to live together.

”

“

Love consists in elevating others, and in being elevated.

”

“

Only he loves whose mind grows brighter and hands grow stronger from love.

”

She had no liberty. There were other women who called themselves free, but they sold the enjoyment of their beauty, they sold their liberty. No, they had no liberty. This tsaritsa was half a slave.

Where there is no liberty there is no happiness, there I am not found.

Again resound the poet’s words. A new picture appears:—

“Yes,” says the tsarita, “thou hast wanted to know who I am; now thou knowest. Thou hast wanted to hear my name; I have no name different from the one to whom I appear; my name is her name. Thou hast seen who I am.

No, there is nothing loftier than man; there is nothing loftier than woman.

I am the one to whom I appear, who loves and is loved.”

it was only a momentary excitement. And woman! how pitiful woman was before I appeared! She was then an abject, servile person. She was in fear; until I came, she knew too little what love is.

Where there is fear there can be no love.

“Therefore, if you want to express in one word what I am, this word is ‘Equal Rights.’ Without it enjoyment of the body, delight in beauty, are tedious, gloomy, wretched; without it there is no purity of heart; there is fallacious purity of body.

But all that which is new in me, which gives a loftier charm to all that was in the former tsaritsas, that in itself constitutes in me a charm which is loftier than all else.

A master is embarrassed before his servant; a servant before his master.

Only in the presence of his equals is a man entirely at his ease. With a lower nature one feels dull; only with an equal is there happiness. Therefore, till I appeared, man did not know full happiness or love.

And the risk in it is, in reality, not nearly so great as it may seem to a person who is less solid in his comprehension of the laws of life than this Kirsánof. The risk is not great at all, but it is serious.

From the whole lottery only one ticket is a blank.

And there is no probability of its being drawn—but supposing it were drawn? Whoever runs a risk must be ready not to wink if he draws the blank. Kirsánof saw the girl’s calm, quiet firmness, and he was sure of her.

“

It shows that you have never seen any terrible men,

” said Kirsánof, with an indulgent smile, thinking to himself, “I should like to show you Rakhmétof.”

Of course, with others, Viéra Pavlovna for example, it would not have done to drag out the affair so tediously; but every temperament has its own demands.

If a hot-tempered man is irritated by slow methods, then a slow man is vexed by an abrupt measure.

Katerina Vasílyevna’s success in dealing with her “bridegroom” exceeded Kirsánof’s expectations. He thought that Sólovtsof would be able to guard his interests, that he would prolong the matter by humiliation and gentle entreaties.